Hearts in Healing: A Devotional Journey from Battling Trials to Realizing Blessings

By Molly Hankey

Hearts in Healing encompasses twenty-nine short daily readings, each accompanied by a devotional philosophy, scripture, and prompt for readers to reflect on their trials in a prayer or written format.

Author Molly Hankey takes readers through her turbulent life chapter of discovering her firstborn child will not be “perfect,” coping with that harsh reality, and discovering peace and excitement in the fullness of God’s plan. She writes from raw emotion about the polarization of her joyful and sorrowful heart. Through the up and down stages of her daughter’s congenital heart defect, she explores the teeter-totter feelings of sadness, anger, inadequacy, elation, gratitude, and awakening, that every human heart can identify with.

Readers are challenged to search deeply into their own hearts, think critically about God’s promises of hope and provision, and to lay their burdens at the feet of Jesus. The devotional leads readers to decision points to take intentional steps towards Christ for their healing, and provides journaling space to document God-inspired insights and progress. Broken, hurting hearts will find healing through this journey with a fellow Spirit-seeker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664242449

Molly Hankey

Molly Hankey is a life-long Christ follower who seeks to help fellow believers strengthen their faith in God and deepen their relationship with Jesus. She wrote Hearts in Healing in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s calling and honors Him with all acknowledgement for the content of the book. Molly lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and their two daughters. The family enjoys serving together in their church and being outdoors enjoying God’s creation. Connect with the author: Facebook @heartsinhealingdevo or [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2021 Molly Hankey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

New Life Version (NLV) Copyright © 1969 by Christian Literature International;

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4243-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4245-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4244-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021916200

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/17/2021

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Blessing in Disguise

Chapter 2 Overwhelming Emotion

Chapter 3 Praise through the Storm

Chapter 4 Let Christ’s Body Do Its Work

Chapter 5 Extraordinary for Jesus

Chapter 6 Voice of the Spirit

Chapter 7 Why Me?

Chapter 8 What If I’m Just Not Enough?

Chapter 9 God Gives Us People

Chapter 10 Source of Strength

Chapter 11 Transforming Thanksgiving

Chapter 12 Deepest Gratitude

Chapter 13 Inadequate Words

Chapter 14 Broken

Chapter 15 The Waves Keep Crashing

Chapter 16 Forgetfully Angry

Chapter 17 Diamonds Out of Dust

Chapter 18 His Perfect Timing

Chapter 19 Unfathomable Miracle

Chapter 20 Love Is

Chapter 21 Changing Seasons

Chapter 22 Empty No More

Chapter 23 Divine Detour

Chapter 24 Comparison-itis

Chapter 25 At His Feet Again

Chapter 26 Full Circle

Chapter 27 Letting Go

Chapter 28 The Unthinkable

Chapter 29 Our Story Is His Glory

About the Author

PREFACE

Life is a journey.

Life is a carrousel.

Life is a highway.

A few years ago, my family visited the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee for a summer vacation. In the mountains of Pigeon Forge, we discovered an alpine roller coaster. It was a cross between a roller coaster and one of those big carnival slides where you sit in a burlap bag. It was operated by weight and gravity but on rails that twisted, turned, rose up, and dipped down over and through the natural terrain. It was a mountaintop-to-valley ride through serene forest, past majestic boulders, amid patches of thorns, by way of sunlight and shadow, bringing delight yet furnishing the stomach-in-the-throat sensation as the speed increased and flying offtrack felt inevitable … yet through the engineer’s design was impossible.

To me, life is an alpine roller coaster.

God’s design for life is not for it to be one blissfully glorious season after another. That’s common knowledge.

Life is God’s beautiful creation for us, but we can sometimes only see the thorns around us or boulders ahead of us that we think will be our demise. If we hang on though and trust that He’s got a hold of us, He’ll eventually bring us to that glorious revelation we long for. I’m not just talking about heaven; I’m talking about the sunlit, radiant joy and peace He brings us to after we’ve gone through a deep, dark patch of thorny thicket.

Much of my adult life has been filled with extreme highs and tremendous lows that God has used to teach me and to heal my sinful-born heart. Having a child with an abnormal physiology is just one way He teaches me His lessons and brings me closer to Him. It accounts for only portions of my alpine roller coaster. I’m sure the trial you are facing right now accounts for only portions of yours as well.

The bends and bumps caused by some kinds of burdens are lifelong. As there will always need to be physical work done on my daughter’s heart, there will always be spiritual work to be done in mine. Our up-and-down ride is in progress until the day we meet our Maker … until the day He reveals to us that final glorious revelation. Until then, we trust our hearts to His healing.

How about you? Will you trust that God’s track won’t derail you? Will you trust your heart with His unexpected plan and seek His incomprehensible healing? Will you step toward the light in faith or away from Him into darkness?

My hope and prayer as you read on is that you find encouragement in your journey, trial, or pain, as well as inspiration to make intentional choices to step